Lowestoft South Breakwater
Lowestoft looking south along the esplanade
At the fuelling berth of Royal Norfolk and Suffolk Yacht Club just after 0800. Refuelled and away by 0845. One final long passage to Chatham on the River Medway, we should be there in the early hours of tomorrow morning all being well. We are on a four hour watch system for this trip. Im on watch 1700 to 2100. Light winds but against us, motor sailing again.
Im on the helm at dinner time, loud noise from the engine.. switched off quickly, switched back on to check all is OK….no water coming out of the exhaust…the impeller had failed. Something must have blocked the intake pipe and allows the impeller to run dry. Charlie the skipper changed the impeller and primed the system but there are some of the fins missing somewhere inside the cooling system, still no water coming through! Our only option now is to sail to a mooring somewhere and try to fix it again. Sailing up the Thames estuary, tacking back and forth across the channel, spotting and avoiding the shipping coming in and out of the Thames takes more than two people on watch. New watch system started with three hours on and 3 hours off. I was on watch until 2200 while we tried to sort out the problem. Now Im back on watch 0000 to 0300 after only 2 hrs rest so feeling a bit cream crackered.
The sailing was great though after all the motoring we've been doing, finally got tied up on the pontoon at Queensborough at 0300. all very tired but a good night sail, tried again to sort the problem but no joy, we will see what daybreak brings, off to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment